The ORM Foundation

I'm trying to follow the instructions in NORMA Lab 1 tutorial, slide 45, which says, "

In the Properties window,

check that “ORMCustomTool”

is the value for the CustomTool property.

(This should be there by default)"

However, it is not there, and typing in "ORMCustomTool" does not give me the ORMGeneratorSettings property, so I can't select a target DBMS.

 Any suggestions?  I'm using the .ORM file posted in the library for the 'IT Management' model.

 Hi Jim,

First the silly question: Did you follow the sequence starting on page 41?

If so, please can you post and image of the propertes window? (select the .orm file then press F4 to see this.

This is what it should look like.

Ken

Hi Jim,

Checklist:

1. Did you install the tool with administrative permissions? NORMA can be partially installed in VS2010 without these permissions, but you won't get extensions, generators, and a few other things working correctly. Make sure you use 'SetupVista.bat' for Vista and Win7.
2. Are you in a VB or C# project (if the add file diagram from the project node in the solution explorer offers an .ORM file then you should be fine).
3. Is your selection in Solution Explorer window (not on the diagram)?
4. Is the CustomTool property visible?
5. Is it set to ORMCustomTool?
6. If you set this to ORMCustomTool and don't see the GeneratorSettings property, change the selection and reselect your file node and see if it appears.

If all of this is set and you don't have it, could you give me an OS (including bitness) and version number that you're running and I can give you some keys to look for to verify the installation.

 -Matt

Here is the sequence of operations:

1. Open Visual Studio 2008
2. File, New, Project
3. take the defaults: Visual Basic, Windows Forms Application
4. Uncheck "Create directory for solution"
5. Name "IT Management DDL"
6. <OK>
7. In Solution Explorer, select the above-named project.
8. Right-click, Add, Existing Item
9. Change file type to "All files (*.*)"
10. Select "IT Management data model.orm" <Add>
11. I'll send you a JPEG of the properties window via Email.

Hi Jim,

Is the .orm model in the project directory structure, or is it a file reference? I'm pretty sure the custom property doesn't work with a file reference.

-Matt

The .ORM file is in the project directory structure (same as where I created the model):

Visual Studio 2008

Projects

IT Management

IT Management.sln

IT Management data model.orm

Hi Jim,

Maybe we can take this offline and I can figure out what is up with your installation. The ORMCustomTool is a completely separate component to the designer, so you can have the designer working fine and the generator broken. Registering custom tools and property providers (for the ORMGeneratorSettings property) is a little touchy in VS.

-Matt